Communities of Action (CoA)

Communities of Action (CoA)

Fostering network growth and connection and bringing ideas together from multiple segments.

Communities of Action (CoA) provide opportunities for connection, idea sharing and professional development. Community of Action Working Groups come together with a shared purpose: to enhance the quality of healthcare for Canadians by learning more about an important digital health topic. CoA Working Groups meet virtually to learn, collaborate, and share knowledge with the Canadian digital health community through reports, white papers, guidelines, or presentations. Volunteering with a Community of Action is a great way to contribute to career and personal growth. Learn more about joining a CoA here.

Current Communities of Action

The following list of CoA Working Groups are progressing toward important deliverables. Contact communities@digitalhealthcanada.com to inquire about a particular Working Group.

Team lead: Currently seeking team lead. Click here for more detailsStatus: In Progress

Many patients and family caregivers are interested in accessing digital tools that may help navigate mental health resources and augment traditional methods of treatment. Digital health professionals are looking for opportunities to link traditional care with a digital space where patients can go to access electronic care, tools, and information that is validated and evaluated.

The objective of this CoA will be to conduct a jurisdictional scan of current work around digital tools related to mental health within Canada. This paper will also provide a recommendation for future work to further develop what can be done to implement this opportunity into mental healthcare.

We are currently looking for a member volunteer to take on the lead role for this group. Click here for more details.

Atlantic Chapter EMR

Team lead: Blair White, EMR Program Director, NLCHIStatus: In Progress

The Atlantic Chapter CoA is aiming to prepare a white paper which outlines recommendations around Electronic Medical Records (EMR) governance for a jurisdiction. When it comes to EMR Governance, the group of stakeholders involved can be a large one; establishing guidelines based upon experience would be beneficial to the digital health industry as a whole and the Atlantic Region in particular. The group will work through lessons learned to date and provide recommendations along with future concepts to be aware of when managing EMR data governance.

Please contact the Atlantic Chapter EMR Community of Action with your insights into Jurisdictional EMR Governance. Include the subject line ‘Atlantic Chapter EMR’ in your email.

Patients, along with their family members and caregivers, are now regularly and authentically engaged as partners in hospitals and policy-making organizations, but their presence remains comparatively absent in digital health technology companies. A cursory look at the landscape of digital health solutions indicates that products with patient access and context are quickly becoming the norm. At the very least, these stakeholders expect to have access and control of the data and information central to these solutions. Continuing to build digital health solutions without the formal input and assistance of patients, their families, and caregivers will lead to a widened disconnect between digital health’s intended and actual value.

The Patients in Tech CoA Working Group seeks to combine and present stories, experiences, insights, and lessons learned from subject matter experts representing four key areas:

Patients

Caregivers/Families

Patient Engagement Professionals

Digital Health Technology Leaders

The intent of gathering this content is to foreground the complementary nature between 1) the principles and benefits of patients as partners and 2) the product discovery, design, and strategy approaches of leading digital health solutions.

This Community of Action Working Group is currently open to contributors, specifically:

Professionals who engage with patients and their family members and have insight into their thoughts/perspectives

Health technology professionals with an interest in patient engagement and partnership

Patient engagement and partnerships professionals

Patient, family, and caregiver advocates with perspectives on the potential role(s) of advocates and advisors in health technology companies

Virtual Care Innovation in Canada

Team Lead: Bailey GriffinStatus: In Progress

Digital Health Canada Member-led Working Groups have completed reviews of telemedicine utilization across Canada on a semi-regular basis. The resulting reports have served as a means of keeping members up-to-date on the state of telemedicine in Canada. Recognizing that the landscape of health care is shifting toward digital or virtual delivery services that include but are not limited to telemedicine, this Working Group would like to undertake a review of virtual care success stories from across the country and share lessons learned. These success stories and lessons learned will be synthesized into a white paper format.

Objectives:

Showcase the virtual care innovation landscape across Canada

Spread knowledge and lessons learned about virtual care successes from across Canada

The biggest challenge facing home and community care today is integrating services and delivery to improve care coordination and patient transitions. Digital technology is now dominating every sector of the economy. Never before has digital technology been so readily available at our fingertips than it is today. Emerging technologies have the potential to shape how healthcare will evolve. While the structures of each provincial health system are very different in many ways and required to work within their policy frameworks, there are also many similarities and shared challenges. Every province is at a different place and understandably digital technology enablers cannot be implemented at the same time. What is the status across provinces and is there a common vision and opportunity?

To provide actionable recommendations and identify strategic opportunities of technology-enabled solutions supporting care coordination and integrated patient transitions. An analysis of current state of technology-enabled solutions and identification of converging digital technologies, starting with high level and environmental jurisdictional scans of home and community care practices, integration, and structure.

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TWITTER

Collingwood General and Marine Hospital has opened the first of 5 self-sanitizing rooms and will be the first hospital in Canada to use copper-infused panels on the walls in hallways and rooms to prevent bacteria growth https://t.co/pznfe6alUr @CollingwoodHosp #cdnhealth